Introduction

According to former Benedictine monk and psychotherapist-writer Richard Sipe:

In 2004 a reliable source of information about the Catholic Church made me aware of document about the American hierarchy that was composed by a small group of insiders including at least one bishop. That document claimed and named 134 bishops that they said were homosexual in orientation or behavior. Several times over the past years I have asked one of the sources to make the list public and to take responsibility for its conclusion. I am told that every one of the authors wants to preserve his anonymity because of his position and employment.[1]

In late 2006, Sipe published a portion of the above list of bishops who were “homosexual in orientation,” under his own name. Archbishop John R. Quinn’s name was on it.

As Sipe has correctly noted in court testimony on clerical sex abuse:

Secrecy is an unwritten but clear code within the clerical system. The clerical system often extends its prerogative of sacramental confessional confidentiality beyond law or reason to include any material it wishes to keep secret to preserve its image and at times for its convenience. … Sexual violations by their nature are difficult to substantiate because the actions are most commonly executed without a third party observer (bold added). The means of determining the facts of an allegation or the truth of denial are usually derivative rather than direct.[2]

However, in the case of Archbishop John Quinn, as we shall see, we are fortunate enough to have “a third party observer.” But first some background on the two other key persons involved in this Quinn investigation, specifically ex-Marine ex-seminarian, Mark Brooks, now deceased, and the “gay” ex-priest Nicolas Reveles who was Quinn’s long-time friend and frequent traveling companion to homosexual hotspots like Palm Springs, Calif.

Mark Brooks Driven Out of Seminary

Some readers may remember the name Mark Brooks. He was a late vocation to the priesthood who entered St. Francis Seminary in San Diego in August 1980 at the age of 26 after he had completed his last tour of duty. As I write this article, I’m gazing at a picture of the tall, handsome Marine with whom I came to enjoy a personal relationship up until his premature death on March 31, 2010. I’ve never forgotten him.

What happened to the young man at St. Francis is beyond tragic. Brooks was faced with circumstances counter to traditional seminary life, that included a radical change in theology and morals and a large contingent of active homosexuals among the seminary staff and faculty and the seminarians themselves. “Particular” friendships and intimate male bonding among the seminarians, instead of being a reason for dismissal, were encouraged. The definition of celibacy was very elastic, for example, the practices of solitary and group masturbation, and of fellatio, between seminarians or seminarians and faculty or staff, was not considered engaging in sexual activity.

Brooks himself was sexually harassed and propositioned dozens of times by a handful of “gay” activists on the seminary campus including the musician/priest Father Nicolas Reveles, who tried to convince Brooks of the “goodness” of sodomy.[3]

In 1982, his second year at St. Francis, Francis approached Reveles to get some support for his father whom Brooks had found two years earlier living on San Diego’s Skid Row. Reveles was sympathetic. Even though Brooks was fully aware that the musician/priest was an active “gay” predator, he fell into a trap carefully laid by Reveles. According to sworn testimony given by Brooks, one evening after accompanying Reveles to dinner and the symphony, the priest plied him with liquor and sodomized him at his residence near the seminary campus.[4] Reveles denied the charge of rape after Brooks went to seminary officials to file a complaint against him. Naturally, seminary officials sided with Reveles, and Brooks was given an ultimatum of entering an alcohol rehabilitation center or facing expulsion. Brooks chose the treatment center operated for veterans. Two weeks after his admittance, Brooks was released from the Veterans Administration facility which reported, much to the consternation of the St. Francis seminary officials, that Brooks was not a drug or alcohol addict, but rather was suffering from stress-related disorders. When Brooks returned to the seminary, he was expelled, destitute and homeless. Eventually, the Diocese of San Diego settled out of court, twice, with Brooks, but Brooks’ vocation to the priesthood was lost forever.

The Quinn – Reveles Connection

In one of his many interviews with this author, Mark Brooks repeated to me how he came to learn about Archbishop Quinn’s relationship with “Nic” Reveles.

According to Brooks, in 1984, two years after the alleged assault, he decided to confront Reveles and went to the priest’s residence. It was a Friday afternoon when Brooks rang the doorbell. He could plainly hear the heavy grunts and groans sounds of a porno video coming from inside the living room. Reveles came to the door without turning down the sound of the video. Seeing Mark wanted to talk with him, he said he was very busy, but Mark insisted he couldn’t wait. When Mark looked into the living room he saw a well-dressed man sitting on the sofa man sipping white wine. It was obvious that Reveles and his guest were drinking and watching a male porno video together. The guest was a sitting archbishop – John Quinn –who turned out to be a close companion of Reveles, even with a 19-year-old age difference – a close enough friend for Quinn to buy Reveles a baby grand.

Reveles Denies His Homosexual Acts

In an August 1987 phone interview with writer Jason Berry who was investigating the charges made against Reveles for his book Lead Us Not Into Temptation – Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children,[5] the priest denied he engaged in homosexual acts.

A former seminary victim of Reveles told Berry:

Reveles was an artist with long stories about his postconcert depression. He’d call at eleven at night. I’d walk to the other side of the earth for this guy. First, he’s holding your hand, then hugging, then unzipping your pants. It was my first homosexual encounter. …Those of us who had been through it with him would see the next class of freshmen and he’d pick out one he liked: they’re together in chapel, then he’s driving Nick’s car. Then all of a sudden the guy is dropped. They were very methodical episodes. And how do you say to someone, “Be careful.”[6]

When Berry asked Reveles to respond to the above accusation, the priest said, “It’s just ridiculous. Simply not true. I am a public minister and a celibate priest, period.”[7]

When Berry asked a question concerning the serious charges Brooks made against him, Reveles responded: “It’s just not true. Absolute fabrications. Every time we hear his story it grows. To do something like that would be spiritually suicidal, and that’s just crazy.”[8]

When Berry followed up with, “Why would two former seminarians say such things about him,” Reveles replied: “Why do rumors grow? Any number of reasons. We know of rumors that aren’t true.”[9]

So, who is telling the truth and who is lying?[10]

If the reader guessed Reveles was lying through his teeth to Berry, you guessed right.

How do we know this for certain? Afterall, 36 years have passed since Berry’s interview?

We know this, because Reveles has publicly revealed the truth about the accusations.

“Nic” Reveles On Queer Tribe

Queer Tribe is a self-described, “international community of queer men who bring enlightenment, love, liberation, healing, knowledge, power and wholeness around issues of queer men’s identity, spirituality and sexuality. … The founding Queer men’s community of Flesh and Spirit is based in San Francisco.”[11]

On September 8, 2021, ex-Father Reveles gave an in-depth phone interview on his “journey as a queer man” to two Queer Tribe leaders, Donny Lobree and Kirk Prine.[12]

As a promo, Reveles is introduced as “a pianist, a composer of three operas[13] and numerous theater scores, and an opera coach and lecturer” as well as “a Somatic Sex Educator and Sexological Bodyworker. Reveles’ long association (1998 to 2018) as the Geisel Director of Education and Outreach for the San Diego Opera, however, was not highlighted.

Reveles began the interview with some family background information. He was born on September 4, 1948, and came from an artistic Latino and French Canadian family from which he inherited a spiritual and body consciousness and mindfulness. He attended a Catholic parish and was taught by progressive nuns in a Catholic school in Oceanside. He said he developed a “benign” attitude toward Catholicism. He started piano lessons early on and by the age of 13 was considering a dual vocation as a musician and a priest.

Regarding his homosexuality, Reveles said he knew he was “different” from other boys about the year of four or five, during which time his parents were divorced. He said he was attracted at an early age to naked male figures rather than female figures.

When he entered the seminary, he said, he had to wrestle chronically with the problem of masturbation, aka “self-abuse,” but his confessors downplayed the matter. He said he could not understand why self-pleasure was a sin. He also aware of the homo-erotic atmosphere of the seminary. “What do you expect with a large, isolated group of young men ages 18 to 27?,” he asks.

The one plus he did derive from his priesthood was that the pewsitters of San Diego picked up the tab for most of his advanced musical education after ordination including his Master of Arts in Choral Conducting (1973-1975) from the University of Redlands, and a Doctorate of Musical Arts (1983-1985) from the Manhattan School of Music for Piano Performance.

The Queer Tribe dialogue then drifted into Reveles’ life after his ordination to the priesthood in 1974, when he was employed as an Associate Professor of Music at the [non-Catholic] University of San Diego (1977-1990). He freely admitted that he often visited St. Francis Seminary where he was part of a ”gay” clique with other homosexual staffers and seminarians. One of their main topics of conversation was the gifts that “gay” men bring to humanity, aka, “service and healing” (including the healing power of music), “the reinvention of manhood,” and “the freeing and enrichment of the human spirit.”

Reveles Utters a Blasphemy

It is during the discussion of the “Erotic self” that Reveles condemns the Western Church for opposing self-pleasure as a sacrament. He sings the praises of massage oils used in masturbation to baptize the whole body and then in an obvious state of ecstasy bordering on possession, utters the words of Consecration – “For This is My Body.”

According to Queer Tribe, Reveles has a new vocation: “His focus is helping people, especially gay men, to recover from the trauma imposed on our bodies by culture, church, and family in a centuries-old attempt to control sexuality and sexual expression. He has developed Body Prayer to reclaim the sacred for our Erotic Bodies.”[14]

Nicolas Reveles left the priesthood in 1990. Homosexual Bishop Robert Brom, who was the new Bishop of San Diego wouldn’t let Reveles transfer to the San Francisco Archdiocese, and besides Reveles had found a new partner, Johnathan Satallante, with whom he lived until 2005.[15]

Reveles died of pancreatic cancer on March 1, 2023, just as this writer was completing this section of the series on Archbishop Quinn. May God have mercy on his soul.

His long-time associate, Archbishop Quinn, resigned his office five years later, in 1995, at the early age of 66 amid the growing discontent of faithful Catholics who opposed the closing of numerous parishes (but not Holy Redeemer); major scandals involving homosexuality and clerical sex abuse of minors including the infamous Msgr. Patrick J. O’Shea case, and charges of financial misdeeds including major clergy theft involving Quinn’s diocesan administration.[16]

Quinn continued to be very active in AmChurch affairs as Archbishop Emeritus of San Francisco.

Obituaries Laud Archbishop Quinn

John Rafael Quinn went to meet his Maker on Thursday, June 22, 2017 at 5:50 in the morning.

Quinn had fallen ill the previous November during a trip to Rome to attend the consistory that elevated his former personal secretary and close friend Archbishop Blasé Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago to the cardinalate. He spent two months at the Salvator Mundi International Hospital in Rome where he had emergency surgery. When complications developed, he was flown home to San Francisco via air ambulance for additional intensive care treatment at Saint Mary’s Medical Center. He was treated by Dr. Jose Eguia, head of the infectious disease unit at St. Mary’s.”[17]

As with the death of many homosexual bishops and priests, the exact cause of Quinn’s death was not publicly announced in any of the obituaries or eulogies this writer researched.

McElroy Presides Over Vigil

A Vigil for Archbishop Quinn was held on July 9 at St. Mary of the Assumption Cathedral with pro-homosexual Bishop (now Cardinal) Robert W. McElroy of the San Diego Diocese presiding.

McElroy was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Quinn at the same cathedral on April 12, 1980, and served as Quinn’s priest-secretary from 1982 to1985, and as Vicar General of the San Francisco Archdiocese until 1997. Quickly climbing the ecclesiastical ladder, McElroy was appointed an Auxiliary Bishop of San Francisco in July 2010, and Bishop of San Diego, Quinn’s old haunt, in March, 2015. Favoring Quinn’s themes of illegal immigration and the “” of environment over prolife issues of abortion, euthanasia, and population control, not surprisingly, McElroy has been, and remains as cardinal, a fierce defender of the Homosexual Collective inside the Catholic Church.

Again, not surprisingly, in his vigil homily, McElroy lauded Quinn’s qualities of “discipleship” and faithfulness to the priesthood. McElroy said that “the continuing call to discipleship and priesthood, the experience of continuity and transformation, and unceasing gratitude to God – formed the life of John Raphael Quinn at its core and the surest comfort and consolation for us in his hour of death.”[18]

During the Vigil, Quinn’s pallium was returned to the archbishop by Wade Hugham, described by the press as Quinn’s lifelong friend. At the Mass that followed the next day, the first reading was delivered by Quinn’s godson, John P. Raphael Hughan.

Quinn’s Funeral Mass

The Mass of Christian Burial was held at St. Mary’s Cathedral on Monday, July 10.

The assembly at the funeral Mass included 24 bishops and archbishops and three cardinals: Cardinal Cupich, Cardinal Roger Mahony, and Cardinal William Levada, the latter two retired archbishops of San Francisco.

Hundreds of male and female religious from the Bay area attended the funeral Mass along with members of Quinn’s family that included the children of his siblings who had preceded him in death.

The Mass was celebrated by pro-homosexual Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco.[19] He used the chalice first used by Archbishop Quinn after his ordination.

Cordileone thanked the many members of San Francisco’s interfaith community in attendance and noted, “Interfaith dialogue was a hallmark of Archbishop Quinn, and your presence today is a testament to that.”[20]

Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, who had served under Archbishop Quinn in San Francisco was the homilist. Wester repeated McElroy’s themes of discipleship stating that Archbishop Quinn’s priestly career was “a steady, inexorable growth toward Christ. I am thinking of John of the Cross,” he said, “In the evening of life we will be judged on love alone.”[21]

Cardinal Cupich, Quinn’s close friend, performed the final commendation of the funeral Mass. “Archbishop Quinn was loved by Jesus and knew it,” said Cupich.

“This intimacy gave him the courage and confidence to live life to the fullest,” he said.[22] Cupich blessed the archbishop’s coffin before it was removed from the cathedral and taken for interment at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma.

Conclusion of Series

In the post-Conciliar era of the Catholic Church, homosexual Archbishop John R. Quinn got a magnificent funeral accompanied by endless favorable eulogies and obituaries from his liberal hierarchial and secular contemporaries.

The lesson Catholics should know by now, after the McCarrick Scandal, is that homosexual prelates always support other homosexual prelates – in life and in death – to their own condemnation.

The end

[1] Richard Sipe, “Are American Bishops Gay?” March 7, 2009. See www.awrsipe.com/Comments/2009-09-11-Are_American_Bishops_Gay.htm.

[2] See Richard Sipe: Report V (awrsipe.com).

[3] Randy Engel, The Rite of Sodomy, Export, PA, 2006, pp. 855-859. The five-volume set is currently available at www.newengelpublishing.com.

[4] The sworn testimony/declaration of his rape by Reveles was later given by Mark Brooks in a Declaration in Opposition To Plaintiff Mary Ann Fallon’s Application for Injunction, March 13, 2002, in the Case of Bishop Brom vs Robert Kumpel. Brooks also related the details of his assault by Reveles in his lengthy [unpublished] communication to Pope John Paul II which was received and noted by Cardinal Re in a letter dated January 13, 1987.

[5] Jason Berry, Lead Us Not Into Temptation, Doubleday, 1992.

[6] Ibid., p.247.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] This writer is in full agreement with Steve Brady of Roman Catholic Faithful who attests to the truth of the evidence provided by Mark Brooks concerning clerical homosexuality in the San Diego Diocese. Brooks was a rare witness in that he was willing to swear under oath to the truth of his public statements.

[11] Flesh and Spirit Community: A community of queer men on an ecstatic path of transformation.

[12] https://qt.fleshandspirit.org/nicolas-reveles.htm.

[13] “Sextet” is a “gay” opera that explores “gay” male desires as experienced by Reveles.

[14] https://fleshandspirit.org/events-list/conversation-with-the-queer-tribe/queer-tribe-nicolas-reveles

[15] Obituary: San Diego Opera's longtime arts educator Nicolas Reveles praised for his passions, wit and kindness – The San Diego Union-Tribune (sandiegouniontribune.com).

[16] Arthur Brew, “Churches Close as Conflicts Continue in San Francisco,” The Wanderer, Oct. 7, 1994. Also “San Francisco Cathedral is Site for ‘Gay Power Bash,’” The Wanderer, Feb. 22, 1995.

[17] Dr. Eguia frequently treats the following conditions: Sexually Transmitted – Search (bing.com). Dr Eguia “frequently treats Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDS), HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), and Viral Infection

[18] July 13, 2017 by Catholic San Francisco – Issuu.

[19] Book review: Setting the Table (renewamerica.com).

[20] July 13, 2017 by Catholic San Francisco – Issuu.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid.